


Neglected Garden

by FallLover



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Isolation, M/M, Self-Harm, post-game good ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 19:01:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallLover/pseuds/FallLover
Summary: Gavin's OK. Really.Okay not really.





	Neglected Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ["Okay"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/510946) by Kayroos_. 

> Short drabble inspired by Kayroos_' beautiful animation.

Gavin subsisted on the margins of the DPD. Some days he was quiet and just did his fucking work and then left. Other days he was loud, angry, dickish. He used to be sharp without quite meaning to be, but lately he meant it, and laughed.

He got in a car accident. Well, the fucker on a motorcycle ran him over while he was leaving a case. Fucked up his arm. Some other cuts. Small things.

No one came to visit him in the hospital. When he was finally allowed to leave and go to the station and get his keys and other personal items he left when he went to the crime scene, people looked at him with his arm sling and bandaids and maybe they wondered.

No one said hi. They turned away. Wasn’t a particularly heroic injury, and Gavin was known to bite back when people tried to offer kindness.

Gavin expected it. He spotted Hank and Connor chatting nearby when he stood up with his full backpack. They seemed rosy and happy.

Whatever. He turned away.

He didn’t see Connor’s eyes lingering on his face as he left.

Tina transferred about a month back, for a nice promotion, and to get away from everything in Detroit. The Revolution primarily. And her new captain was badass apparently and Gavin was pretty sure Tina had a crush on her but Tina wouldn’t leak any details. Yet.

They were still friends. The unfortunate side effect of not working together or seeing each other on a regular basis was that they relied on the other person admitting when things happened, and Gavin didn’t do that. He used social media, but it was usually to like memes and jokes, not share personal details. Tina was working when the crash was reported on the news, so she didn’t hear about it, and Gavin never told her he was in the hospital.

She was busy, she needed to focus on her new job. It would just be a distraction.

Gavin sat alone in his apartment with his cat and a box of pizza and marathoned three new animated TV shows. He texted Tina every now and then. He was sort of lying to her that he was actually at work but well... he had enough info on the brain from cases he hadn’t already talked to her about that he could fake it. And he didn’t want to dump his miserable lonely ass on her.

Two days in and he was pretending he wasn’t ready to climb the walls. He accidentally knocked a glass off the kitchen island with his cast and his cat fled under the sofa at the noise and Gavin sat on the ground and just. Fucking. Cried.

He got the cat in the bedroom somehow and cleaned up the broken glass. His injured arm bumped the floor – painfully – but he was pretty sure he deserved it - for what, he had no firm idea - and it just made him angrier and he used that to work through the shit.

* * *

Rather than work from home when the opportunity finally arose, and with the hope of a change of scenery, Gavin went into work to finish some paperwork. He could just let someone else do it, but he was a bit Extra when it came to making sure things were right in his own work.

It was a pain in the ass to do one-handed, and without his dominant hand, no less. He tried to tamp down on how annoyed he was getting, on top of other people noticing his struggles, but it really didn’t work.

He left at last to go to the blissfully empty bathroom and bang his head against a stall wall, his face covered in tears, telling himself to stop crying, what the fuck’s he got to cry for!?

“Detective Reed?” A quiet, slightly raspy voice asked.

Gavin paused, blinked. His breathing was heavy and maybe he imagined...?

“Detective Reed, are you all right?”

“Of course--“ Gavin swallowed. His voice was a mess. “Of course I’m fucking all right!”

There was silence for a bit.

“Giving yourself a concussion is not a good idea.”

Gavin’s face burned even more. He had no idea how long Connor had been standing there, apparently listening. Maybe he could just see and hear through the fucking walls. In any case, Gavin didn’t have a decent response and his throat was too tight.

Connor pushed open the stall door. Gavin picked one of the broken ones on accident. Door didn’t lock. Connor slipped in with him before Gavin could push the door closed and they were standing there in the tiny stall, Connor’s LED bright yellow.

Connor stared, practically inches from Gavin’s face, at Gavin’s ugly mug. Gavin knew he had a new scar on the bottom of his jaw. He knew his face was probably red and blotchy from crying, and fucking shit the tears were still coming. And he knew he was ugly when he was angry, enough exes had commented on it.

He was ugly the rest of the time, too. He wasn’t sure how they spotted the distinction.

Gavin nearly fell over moving to not get hit by the door, and Connor grabbed his uninjured arm, holding him up.

“What?!” Gavin demanded. His voice was somehow worse.

“I do not want you to injure yourself further.”

“Why the fuck do you care?”

“Do I need a reason to not wish to see you harmed?”

“I’ve been a fucking dick to you the entire goddam time you've been here. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t look at me twice if I was getting hit by a bus.”

Connor pulled him out of the stall. Every time Gavin tried to tug away, it was like he was tugging at an iron bar.

“What, you gonna drag me out in front of the bullpen so everyone can laugh?” Gavin snarled.

“No, Gavin. I wanted you to have more room to stand without tripping over the toilet.”

Gavin swallowed. Connor still didn’t let go when they stopped in the middle of the bathroom. Gavin had nothing to say.

“Gavin, What would you do in my situation?”

“Walk the fuck away,” Gavin replied.

“You’d just ignore a coworker in pain?”

Gavin looked away. “...I can’t help myself. The fuck could I do for someone else?”

“As I’ve learned recently, it’s sometimes easier to help others than apply that help to ourselves.”

“Well la di fucking da for you and your worldly insights.”

“Is your arm hurting?”

“No.” White lie. It was more just obnoxious to deal with.

“Is your typing making it worse?”

“No.” That was true, or at least Gavin thought so.

“What upset you?”

“Why’s it any of your goddamn business?”

Connor huffed. “Maybe I’m worried about you, Gavin.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need a reason to worry about the people around me. That’s what empathy is. You could cause yourself serious, irreparable injury, trying to hit yourself into a concussion.”

Gavin stared at him. Connor’s face was guileless, maybe even... slightly concerned. “...You should hate me.”

Connor blinked, then tilted his head. “Do _you_ hate _me_?”

“...I don’t fucking know. On the scale of things, no, maybe.” He snorted. “I don’t give enough of a shit about you to hate you.”

Connor smiled at that.

“What the fuck are you so happy about??? That would make normal people turn the fuck around and never look back!”

“You think of me as a person then, rather than a tin can?”

Gavin swallowed. Then he looked away again. “You’re certainly dumb enough to be a person.”

Connor laughed.

Gavin felt the bottom of his stomach drop. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Connor laugh. It wasn’t mean either.

It wasn’t a bad laugh.

“You shouldn’t hurt yourself like that. Your friends would be upset if they saw that.”

“Oh yeah. Totally. Why don’t you skedaddle before they pop up around the corner and throw tomatoes.”

“Is there someone I can call for you?”

“Sure. Idris Elba. You heard of him?”

Connor huffed again. “You’re well connected.”

Gavin stared at him and snorted. “Is that flirting? Are you fucking flirting with me?”

“Gavin, let me drive you home.”

“No.”

“I insist.”

“Why? I have work—“

“As I’ve come to learn, some paperwork can actually wait.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “I’ll get a fucking taxi.”

“Gavin, please.”

“...Fine. Weirdo.”

Connor smiled. Gavin felt his throat tighten at the sight.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the "Arietty" soundtrack. It randomly popped up while I was editing and thinking about it, Gavin's issues deal with a form of self-help neglect, and well... the Zen Garden and people being gardens in need of tending and something or other. I hate titling things if you haven't noticed lol. I'm tempted to make a follow-up to this but for now I like it as a one-shot.


End file.
